If the human mind is a product of evolution, how can we be sure that it is reliable at arriving at the truth? What if false or irrational beliefs produced greater evolutionary fitness than true and rational ones? But, if that were so, it would undermine all our confidence in the very belief that the human mind is a product of evolution, making that a self-defeating idea.
Hence, if the human mind is a product of evolution, evolution must ultimately prefer truth to falsehood. But, what then to make of evidence that, in the long-run, natural selection prefers religious beliefs to non-religious belief? Can you see how that might be a problem for those who are convinced that all specifically religious beliefs are false and irrational?
Nah, if religious belief helps group cohesion in such a way that we get societies that overall increase the likelihood of survival, then the truth of said religion is irrelevant.
Religions themselves are to some degree affected by their own evolutionary pressures. The views on missionary work, procreation and possibly also military all will effect the group of people that adhere to the religion, and if they lead to a higher survival/birth-rate then the religion itself will also win against alternatives. The truth of its dogma isn’t really relevant for this factor (unless we start considering interventionist deities, but that’s a different discussion entirely, as the above would apply across shared value/belief systems without the need for interventionism)
> Nah, if religious belief helps group cohesion in such a way that we get societies that overall increase the likelihood of survival, then the truth of said religion is irrelevant.
Would you still endorse the same statement if one replaced “religious” with something else, say “philosophical”?
Also, is that saying “the truth of a belief is irrelevant, so long as it has pragmatic benefits”? But, doesn’t that undermine one of the key arguments for the truth of scientific claims - the pragmatic technological benefits of their acceptance?
The person you’re responding to is making a positive claim, not a normative one: from the anthropological perspective, religions solve coordination problems. That doesn’t mean we ought to solve coordination problems with religion, it just means that it has a moderately successful track record.
See above re: fundamental misunderstanding of truth in science.
Not quite sure where you’re going with the religion vs philosophy question, in the context of my statements the only real difference would be removing any threat of divine intervention, which itself may have some effect on the how well groups align with their shared beliefs. Read like that then yes, I would agree that the statement would apply for philosophy, but weaker.
As for your original post, you
make a jump to stating that evolution would prefer truth, but that’s not a given simply from the fact that we perceive our world in such a way that we consider evolution. Evolution as we understand it is without intent, and only “prefers” that which in the
long run yields further offspring.
A point I was trying to make was that the truthfulness of for instance religiosity doesn’t impact whether or not it has an effect on “fitness”. A religion can be entirely false, and yet contain memes that make its adherents’ genes procreate more successfully.
You can’t be sure you’re arrived at the truth. Nothing about the philosophy of science expects you to be sure; it’s an inductive process that encourages increasing confidence, but never absolute certainty.
Evolution doesn’t “prefer” anything. It’s a stochastic adaptation process. The existence of religious beliefs is incredibly interesting from an anthropological perspective, but doesn’t really tell us anything about evolution itself.
It isn’t an argument that we should believe in any particular religion. So, even if it works, yes it works just as well for Norse paganism as for anything else.
But still, an argument that “some religion is probably true” would have value even if it can’t tell us which religion is true
Hence, if the human mind is a product of evolution, evolution must ultimately prefer truth to falsehood. But, what then to make of evidence that, in the long-run, natural selection prefers religious beliefs to non-religious belief? Can you see how that might be a problem for those who are convinced that all specifically religious beliefs are false and irrational?